Will U.S. Suspension Of Pakistan Aid Work?

The U.S. Congress agreed yesterday to withhold $700 million in aid for Pakistan but the move, like a similar one in July, is unlikely to pressure Islamabad to be more effective in battling Taliban militants.

Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Pakistani activists hung shoes on the portraits of Barack Obama andHillary Clinton during a demonstration in Karachi, December 1.

A U.S. House and Senate negotiating panel agreed to the measure as it reached agreement on a $662 billion defense bill for the year that began Oct. 1.

This time, the withholding of funds is meant to achieve a particular end: Pakistan’s cooperation in stopping the spread of improvised-explosive devices. These IEDs, which have led to many deaths and casualties among U.S. troops in Afghanistan, are often made using fertilizer produced in Pakistani factories. The U.S. has been frustrated by Islamabad’s failure to stem the illegal flow of this fertilizer across the border.

The strategy is unlikely to change Pakistan’s army’s strategic calculations, says Aisha Siddiqa, an expert on Pakistan’s military. That’s because Pakistan, despite its reliance on $20 billion in U.S. aid in the past decade, is willing to risk the relationship due to growing anti-U.S. sentiment in the country and differing strategic goals in Afghanistan.

“The threat to cut down financial resources will not be a deterrent,” she said. “We’re at a point where relations are pretty much irreparable.”

Pakistan is angered over the covert U.S. raid on a Pakistan garrison town in May that killed Osama bin Laden. An airstrike by North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers by mistake last month has further soured the relationship.

The U.S. says Pakistan has done too little to crack down on Taliban militants on its territory despite huge funding and threats to ratchet back monies began in earnest last year.

In July, the White House said the U.S. was withholding $800 million in aid as relations nosedived after the bin Laden raid. Some of that reduction was directly related to the expenses of U.S. military trainers whom Pakistan had expelled in May in retaliation for the raid, U.S. officials said.

Ms. Siddiqa says Pakistan is instead looking at how it can do without the money, rather than make the changes the U.S. wants.

Pakistan’s reliance on U.S. funding is “overblown,” she says. The country’s military budget for 2010-2011 was $6.41 billion, or 2.6% of gross domestic product. Pakistan also is hoping in the future to rely more on China, its regional ally.

Pakistan wants to wean itself off U.S. aid so that it is not beholden to Washington as U.S. and Pakistani aims in Afghanistan diverge. Pakistan views some factions of the Taliban as potential allies in Afghanistan once most international troops leave by 2014 and it blames fighting in Afghanistan for destabilizing the region.

The U.S. is hoping the threat of reducing its $2 billion in annual military aid will help get Pakistan on board, increasing pressure on the Taliban and forcing them in to peace talks. Given recent history, it looks like a long shot.